Image courtesy Boom Supersonic
When you’re working to bring supersonic commercial air travel back from the dead, you’d better be using the latest in advanced manufacturing technology. These days, that certainly includes 3-D printing (a.k.a. additive manufacturing, or AM). For Boom Supersonic (read more background on them here), it meant partnering with Stratasys Ltd. to bring the latest in AM to their development and production efforts.
Stratasys (NASDAQ: SSYS), based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, on the outskirts of the Twin Cities, is one of the pioneering AM companies. It was founded by Scott and Lisa Crump in 1988 to make a business out of Scott’s invention, Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), now one of the eight recognized AM technologies. The company first made its name in rapid prototyping, and has since developed full-scale manufacturing applications.
For Boom, the three decades Stratasys has spent in developing its AM technologies provide a solid foundation for making the most of what AM has to offer, with both time-tested applications and new breakthroughs. “We’ve given them a starting point – tooling,” explained Scott Sevcik, VP, Aerospace Business Segment for Stratasys, referring to the jigs and fixtures manufacturers use to create finished parts. “Boom has a variety of tooling applications using AM. That proved our capability.”
The Boom-Stratasys partnership has already taken the application of AM well past simple tooling, however. “If you walk around the [Boom] facility, each station has AM applications,” said Sevcik. “They range from very simple to complex – it’s a broad way of using the technology.”
One example of this is Boom’s flight simulator. “Many components in their simulator are 3-D printed,” Sevcik sad, “including parts of the control system, as well as cockpit elements.”
A composite part tool created and used by Boom, printed on Stratasys 3-D printer
The companies first joined forces in 2017, with an initial agreement to leverage the Stratasys F370 and Fortus 450mc 3-D printers. That initial agreement is now a negotiated seven-year partnership. “They needed a trusted, proven technology for actual aircraft components,” Sevcik explained. “Now that’s led us to the F900 printer. It’s been around for over ten years now and continues to be refined. We’ve made it very repeatable. It’s used in actual manufacturing elsewhere in aerospace, and is proven technology. Boom has identified a large number of parts for the their test vehicle they will be able to print with it.”
Sevcik spoke highly of how the partnership works. “We have an open, free-flowing dialogue,” he said. “Sometimes we join them in their hangar [at Centennial Airport in Denver, Colorado]. Sometimes we work out of our lab to support them. Either one of us might propose a solution.”
The long experience Stratasys has had working with many companies over the years comes into play here as well. “We’re able to offer test results from past application development and research to help Boom with their early development,” Sevcik said. “It’s an interesting thing about supporting a clean sheet design – we’re not replacing legacy parts and having to trade against a part that’s already qualified. We’re just jumping straight to what FDM has to offer and trading against traditional manufacturing technologies directly.”
The expertise Boom brings to the table is another element in the companies’ ongoing success working together. “Part of the relationship is seeing what they can do with FDM,” said Sevcik. “Stratasys might provide design guidance for the technology, then Boom takes over designing the part they need utilizing the strengths of the FDM process. They have come up to speed incredibly fast.”
The test flight Boom plans for 2020 of its subscale protoype, the XB-1, will be an opportunity for the partnership to demonstrate its work. “There’s an opportunity for a lot of plastic in the interior,” Sevcik pointed out. “That gives Boom the chance to leverage AM for its unique design capabilities and be cost-effective for low volume production.” The F900 printer is being put to active use in the fabrication of the XB-1.
The Boom partnership allows Stratasys to further develop their acumen in the aerospace industry. “Boom is a microcosm of the entire aircraft industry,” explained Sevcik. “Working with them, we get to see firsthand how they are going about qualifying our process and the resultant parts.. We need to know where we’re demonstrating our consistency and repeatability, and know where we have gaps to close or opportunities to improve further.” Stratasys has two end goals in mind: to eventually play a significant part in the production of Boom’s full-scale airliner, the Overture, and to leverage that for greater opportunities in the aerospace field overall.
NASA's Orion spacecraft docking hatch, 3-D printed in six separate interlocking parts on Stratasys ... [+]
Sevcik likes where Stratasys has brought its technology today, and the opportunities down the road. “One of the key things for people to think about is this,” he said. “We’re 30 years into AM, and there are technologies like FDM that have reached a level of maturity to be accepted as a true manufacturing technology. We’re now using it in true production applications.
“Now we’re thinking of new opportunities. What are all the areas where it can be actively used for finished parts designs? How can we use it to help all of our business partners be more cost-effective?”
Aerospace applications continue to be a primary focus. “Think about what today’s airliner cabin looks like,” Sevcik said. “You are surrounded by plastic. We’re focused on this: how many of all those parts in that cabin can we use FDM to make better, more differentiated, or less expensive? That’s our future.”
